Extended Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 151 AM EST Wed Feb 02 2022 Valid 12Z Sat Feb 05 2022 - 12Z Wed Feb 09 2022 ...Overview... The medium range period starts out Saturday with broad troughing across much of the CONUS, sandwiched between a building ridge over the East Pacific and a retreating ridge into the west-central Atlantic. Within the mean flow, multiple smaller scale shortwaves should be present -- one exiting the Northeast, another weakening into the Deep South, and a third dropping into the northern Rockies. The last one should amplify by early next week with a positively tilted trough stretched from the Great Lakes to the Southern Plains. Southern stream energy out of this trough may move across the Southeast to induce surface low cyclogenesis well off the East Coast. Meanwhile, strong ridging will build in across the West (and points east) before dropping southward as the next shortwave moves across the northern tier by the middle of next week. ...Guidance Evaluation/Predictability Assessment... The latest suite of models and ensembles continue to show enough agreement for a general deterministic model blend for the day 3-5/Saturday-Monday time period. After this, timing differences remain with a northern stream shortwave across the northern Plains on Tuesday, though models did trend slightly faster than previous WPC continuity. Elsewhere, there has been plenty of run to run variability with another Southeast shortwave on Tuesday and also an exiting shortwave through the Northeast. Given what are mostly small scale detail differences with these systems, it seemed most advantageous at this stage to blend in more of the ensemble means the latter half of the period. This approach maintains good continuity with yesterdays WPC forecast as well. ...Weather Highlights/Threats... Much of the CONUS should be uneventful and mostly dry through early next week at least in terms of any notable weather threats. Periodic activity is possible across the Southeast associated with a couple of frontal waves/upper level impulses. However, continued guidance differences leads to low confidence in the coverage and amounts of precipitation over the region. Enough cold air however does offer the potential for some swaths of wintry weather on the northern periphery of any kind of surface low development off the east coast, with the best potential for any kind of light activity on Sunday over the Carolinas or southern Mid-Atlantic. Elsewhere, northern tier systems will bring periods of light and scattered snow from the upper Midwest to Great Lakes while mostly light rain/mountain snow should accompany a couple of systems brushing the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies. Much below normal temperatures, with daytime highs as much as 10 to 20 degrees below normal, will continue through the weekend across parts of Texas, with less extreme, but still below normal, values extending eastward to the East Coast. After Sunday, temperatures across this region should moderate back towards normal. A welcome relief from the cold in the short range period, the northern to central Plains should remain above normal through the entire medium range period, with the warmest anomalies (+20-25F) during the first half of next week as upper level ridging moves in. Meanwhile, the western U.S. should trend warmer as well under the influence of eastern Pacific ridging making its way onshore. Santorelli Additional 3-7 Day Hazard information can be found on the WPC medium range hazards outlook chart at: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/threats/threats.php WPC medium range 500mb heights, surface systems, weather grids, quantitative precipitation, winter weather outlook probabilities and heat indices are at: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/medr/5dayfcst500_wbg.gif https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/medr/5dayfcst_wbg_conus.gif https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/5km_grids/5km_gridsbody.html https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/day4-7.shtml https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/pwpf_d47/pwpf_medr.php?day=4 https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heat_index.shtml